Green Bay to meet Ohio State in first round of Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off

Aug. 2, 2007

Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader

Indianapolis, Ind. -- The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men's basketball team is one of 16 entrants in the field for the 2007 Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off, which begins November 12.

The Phoenix opens at Columbus, Ohio, against national runner-up Ohio State University in one of four geographic quadrants feeding into the (Nov. 21 and 23) summit at New York's famed Madison Square Garden. The Green Bay-OSU contest is set for 9 p.m. (ET) before a national television audience on ESPN2. It is one of only three first-round match-ups to be televised nationally, and the only on on ESPN or ESPN2.

Columbia University and Delaware State University provide the other half of the Columbus field. The winners and losers of the first-round games will square off in championship and consolation action the following night at the Jerome Schottenstein Center.

Green Bay posted an 18-15 overall record for head coach Tod Kowalczyk last season, finishing 7-9 to tie for fourth place in the Horizon League standings. The Phoenix returns four starters from that group, led by juniors Mike Schachtner and Ryan Tillema as two key components of Green Bay's long-range arsenal. Schachtner ranked tenth in the League in scoring (14.9 points per game) last season, finishing among the circuit's top performers in all three shooting-percentage categories. Tillema added 8.6 points per outing, while junior forward Terry Evans earned a spot on the League's All-Defensive Team for the second year in a row, averaging 1.70 steals per game to go with his nightly norms of 7.7 points and 6.3 rebounds.

Syracuse University, the University of Washington and Texas A&M University host the other preliminary-round match-ups. Siena College, St. Joseph's (Pa.) University and Fairleigh Dickinson University travel to Syrcause, with New Jersey Institute of Technology, the University of Utah and High Point University visiting Washington. Oral Roberts University, the University of Texas-El Paso and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi comprise the rest of the field at Texas A&M.

The semifinals of the tournament are scheduled for ESPN2 on Nov. 21, with the consolation and championship games airing on ESPN and ESPN2, respectively, two nights later.

Horizon League member Butler University took advantage of its entry into last year's NIT Season Tip-Off, defeating the University of Notre Dame (71-69) and Indiana University (60-55) to earn a trip to New York. The Bulldogs then knocked off the University of Tennessee (56-44) and Gonzaga University (79-71) to win the title, starting their path toward a League-record 29 victories, a national top-ten ranking, and a spot in the NCAA Championship's Sweet 16.

Arguably the most prestigious early-season tournament, the NIT Season Tip-Off originally was known as the Preseason NIT when it started in 1985.

###

Note: The tournament schedule can be found in the PDF version of this release.